HEALTH COST MATTERS

INFORMED CONSUMERS DRIVE CHANGE

Healthcare. You can’t live with the cost and you can’t live without the care.

Is there anything more confounding, frustrating and expensive in our nation’s economy … and our personal budgets … than healthcare and its cost? Healthcare now comprises almost a fifth of the US economy. In some households, healthcare costs more than the housing and food … combined. What do we get in exchange for that investment? Is it a good value?

Health Cost Matters examines and attempts to explain healthcare costs at the individual, consumer level. We also explore this subject in the larger picture … why the healthcare industry is different from all other businesses and industries, and why it’s so difficult on both a personal and national level to manage and control the cost.

OUR MISSION

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

Our mission is to inform and educate consumers about the healthcare industry and the business of helping patients, and to engage you in addressing your household’s healthcare costs ... and enlist you to participate in driving change across the industry.

INFORM

Our ambition is to explain one of the most complicated, rapidly evolving, irrational and opaque industries on earth: the U.S. medical-insurance complex.

ENGAGE

We are committed to helping consumers understand their household healthcare costs. Chances are you have at some time overpaid a claim because you were billed incorrectly, you were denied coverage in error, or you didn’t comprehend the incomprehensible.

DRIVE CHANGE

We want to hear from you … your concerns, personal stories, your ideas. We all know someone impacted by health care, for better or worse, so please reach out.

Health Cost Matters will help explain how to evaluate your claims, what questions to ask and what information to demand before you pay. Or, if you’ve already paid a claim and question it later, learn what you need to know and do to recover an overpayment ... and who to ask.

HEALTH COST TALES / TWO BLOGS

PATIENT TALES

Our blog, Patient Tales, shares what we know, what we think, what we think we know, and what we learn along the way.

It focuses on two main topics:

TALES FROM AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Through Alternative Universe, we try out best to describe why the healthcare industry is like none other, and why our healthcare system does not fit into a rational decision-making business model common to other industries. Before we can begin to fix out-of-control healthcare costs, we need to understand the nature of the spectacularly baffling challenge before us. Alternative Universe is a series of allegories in which we superimpose the way we select, compare and pay for health services onto everyday activities.

TALES FROM THE MAILBOX

At the same time patients and their families are intently focused on their illnesses and treatments, many get slammed with claims and balance bills for services and charges that are inappropriate or should be covered through insurance. This not only takes energy and focus away from healing, it adds extreme stress and worry. Unfortunately, most people simply pay the claims they receive in the mail, not realizing they’re getting overcharged or are denied benefits they’ve paid for. Most have no idea what questions to ask or where to turn for help. The Mailbox explores the messy landscape of healthcare claims … real life situations of patients who were balance billed or overcharged by providers, or whose insurance didn’t pay for services that should have been covered. Along the way we’ll also explore related topics, such as have you selected the most cost effective health plan for your family, and are you protected when you go on vacation?